PLUTARCH'S LIVES. THESEUS. As Who, for the palm, in contest high shall join? (as Eschylus expresses it) it appeared to me, that he who peopled the beautiful and famed city of Athens, might be best contrasted and compared with the father of the magnificent and invincible Rome. Permit us then to * Sossius Senecio, a man of consular dignity, who flourished under Nerva and Trajan, and to whom Pliny addressed some of his Epistles, not the Senecio put to death by Domitian. take from Fable her extravagance, and make her yield to, and accept the form of, History: but where she obstinately despises probability, and refuses to mix with what is credible; we must implore the candour of our readers, and their kind allowance for the tales of Antiquity. THESEUS, then, appeared to answer to Romulus in many particulars. Both were of uncertain parentage, born out of wedlock; and both had the repute of being sprung from the gods. Both stood in the first rank of warriors; for both had great powers of mind, with great strength of body. One was the founder of Rome, and one peopled Athens, the most illustrious cities in the world. Both carried off women by violence. Both were involved in domestic miseries, and exposed to family resentment and both, towards the end of their lives, are said to have offended their respective citizens, if we may believe what seems to be delivered with the least mixture of poetical fiction. The lineage of Theseus, by his father's side, stretches to Erectheus and the first inhabitants of his country *; by his mother's side to Pelops †, who was the most powerful of all the Pelopennesian kings, not only on account of his great opulence, but the number of his children; for he married his daughters to persons of the first dignity, and found means to place his sons at the head of the chief states. One of them named Pittheus, grandfather to Theseus, founded the small city of Trezene, and was esteemed the most learned, and the wisest man of his age: Theseus was the sixth in descent from Erectheus, or Erictho-nius, said to be the son of Vulcan and Minerva, or Cranae, granddaughter of Cranus, the second king of Athens; so that Plutarch very justly says, that Theseus was descended from the Autocthones, or first inhabitants of Attica, who were so called because they pretended to be born in that very country. It is generally allowed, however, that this kingdom was founded by Cecrops an Egyptian, who brought hither a colony of Saites, about the year of the world 2448, before Christ 1556. The inhabitants of Attica were indeed a more ancient people than those of many other districts of Greece, which being of a more fertile soil, often changed their masters, while few were ambitious of settling in a barren country. † Pelops was the son of Tantalus, and of Phrygian extraction. He carried with him immense riches into Peloponnesus, which he had dug out of the mines of mount Sypilus. By means of this wealth, he got the government of the most considerable towns for his sons, and married his daughters to princes. The essence of the wisdom of those days consisted in such moral sentences as Hesiod is celebrated for in his Book of works. One of these is ascribed to Pittheus: Blast not the hope which friendship has conceiv'd This is confirmed by Aristotle and Euripides, in saying that Hippolytus was taught by "the sage and venerable Pittheus," gives him a very honourable testimony. Egeus, wanting to have children, is said to have received from the Oracle at Delphi, that celebrated answer, which commanded him not to approach any woman before he returned to Athens. But as the Oracle seemed not to give him clear instruction, he came to Trazene, and communicated it to Pittheus in the following terms. "The mystic vessel shall untouch'd remain," It is uncertain what Pittheus saw in this Oracle. However, either by persuasion or deceit, he drew Ægeus into conversation with his daughter Ethra. Egeus afterwards coming to know that she whom he had laid with was Pittheus's daughter, and suspecting her to be with child, hid a sword and a pair of sandals under a large stone, which had a cavity for the purpose. Before his departure, he told the secret to the princess only, and left orders, that if she brought forth a son, who, when he came to a man's estate, should be able to remove the stone, and take away the things left under it, she should send him with those tokens to him, with all imaginable privacy; for he was very much afraid that some plot would be formed against him by the Pallantida, who despised him for his want of children. These were, fifty brothers, the sons of Pallast. * Hesiod flourished about 500 years after Pittheus. Solomon wrotę his Moral Sentences two or three hundred years after Pittheus. + Pallas was brother to Ægeus; and as geus was supposed to have no children, the Pallantida considered the kingdom of Athens as their undoubted inheritance. It was natural, therefore, for Ægeus to conclude, that if they came to know he had a son, they would attempt to assassinate either him or his son. Ethra was delivered of a son; and some say he was immediately named Theseus *, because of the laying up of the tokens; others, that he received his name after. wards at Athens, when Ægeus acknowledged him for his son. He was brought up by Pittheus, and had a tutor named Connidas, to whom the Athenians, even in our times, sacrifice a ram, on the day preceeding the Thesean Feasts, giving this honour to his memory upon a much juster account than that which they pay to Silanion and Parrhasius, who only made statues and pictures of The seus. As it was then the custom for such as had arrived at man's estate, to go to Delphi to offer the first-fruits of their hair to Apollo, Theseus went thither, and the place where this ceremony is performed, from him, is said to be yet called Thesea. He shaved, however, only the fore part of his head, as Homer tells us the Abantes did†; and this kind of tonsure, on his account, was called Theseis. The Abantes first cut their hair in this manner, not in imitation of the Arabians, as some imagine, nor yet of the Mysians, but because they were a warlike peopłe, who loved close fighting, and were more expert in it than any other nation. Thus Archilocus : These twang not bows, nor sling the hissing stone, And with the thundering sword decide the fray. That they might not, therefore, give advantage to their enemies by their hair, they took care to cut it off. And we are informed that Alexander of Macedon, having made the same observation, ordered his Macedonian troops to cut off their beards, these being a ready handle in battle. * The Greeks, as well as the Hebrews, gave names both to persons and things from some event or circumstance attending that which they were to name. The Greek word Thesis signifies laying up, and thesthai uion, to acknowledge, or rather to adopt a son. Ageus did both; the ceremony of adoption being necessary to enable Theseus, who was not a legitimate son, to inherit the crown. †The Abantes were the inhabitants of Eubœa, but originally of Abae, a town in Thrace. Archilochus was a Greek poet, who lived about the time of Romulus. Homer had given the same account of the Abantes above three hundred years before. For, in the second book of the Iliad, he tells us, the Abantes pierced the breast-plates of their enemies with extended spears or pikes; that is to say, they fought hand to hand. For some time Ethra declared not the real father of Theseus; but the report propagated by Pittheus was, that he was the son of Neptune: for the Trazenians principally worship that god: he is the patron of their city; to him they offer their first-fruits; and their money bears the impression of a trident. Theseus, in his youth, discovering not only great strength of body, but firmness and solidity of mind, together with a large share of understanding and prudence, Ethra led him to the stone and having told him the truth concerning his origin, ordered him to take up his father's tokens, and sail to Athens. He easily removed the stone, but refused to go by sea, though he might have done it with great safety, and though he was prest to it by the entreaties of his grandfather and his mother; while it was hazardous, at that time, to go by land to Athens, because no part was free from the danger of ruffians and robbers. Those times, indeed, produced men of strong and indefatigable powers of body, of extraordinary swiftness and agility; but they applied those powers to nothing just or useful. On the contrary, their genius, their disposition, their pleasures tended only to insolence, to violence, and to rapine. As for modesty, justice, equity, and humanity, they looked upon them as qualities in which those who had it in their power to add to their possessions, had no manner of concern; virtues praised only by such as were afraid of being injured, and who abstained from injuring others out of the same principle of fear. Some of these ruffians were cut off by Hercules in his peregrinations, while others escaped to their lurking-holes, and were spared by the hero in contempt of their cowardice. But when Hercules had unfortunately killed Iphitus, he retired to Lydia, where, for a long time, he was a slave to Omphale,* a punishment which he imposed upon himself for the murder. The Lydians then enjoyed great quiet and security; but in Greece the same kind of enormities broke out anew, there being no one to restrain or quell them. It was therefore extremely dangerous to travel by land from Peloponnesus to Athens; and Pittheus, acquainting Theseus with the number of these ruffians, and with their * Those who had been guility of murder became voluntary exiles, and imposed on themselves a certain penance, which they continued till they thought their crime expiated. VOL. I F |